It's about a number that, for all of his life, he was led to believe that he was a simple, 3 digit guy. However, his world is shattered when one day, he is accidentally informed that he is actually made up of an incomprehensible amount of digits, and he will never actually be able to determine his true identity. He ends up taking his life in a bizarre murder/suicide, sending the rest of the world into chaos

The novel begins with the author describing in an author’s note his travels to India, where he meets a man named Francis Adirubasamy in a coffeehouse in Pondicherry. His response to the author’s claim that he needs inspiration is “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” After which he refers the author to Piscine Patel in Toronto, who immediately begins to tell his own story, starting in Chapter 1.

As a teenager in Pondicherry, India, Pi Patel describes his family – himself, his parents, and his brother Ravi. He is constantly exploring new opportunities and learning many odd and exciting things. His father is the proprietor of the Pondicherry Zoo, where Pi learns much of the workings and raising of animals. Pi’s mother is an avid reader and introduces to him numerous literary works from which he learns the joys of numerous schools of thought. His school is filled with amazing teachers, one of whom, Mr. Kumar is an inspiration to Pi.

Deriving his full name (Piscine) from a world famous swimming pool in France, his parents are good friends with Francis Adirubasamy (from the author’s note), a world class swimmer who often goes on about the Piscine Molitor in Paris. He goes by Pi instead because his schoolmates make a big deal out of calling him “pissing” instead as it sounds similar. They all take to the name and from that point on, his name is no long Piscine but Pi.

Pi grew up a Hindu, but discovered the Catholic faith at age 14 from a priest by the name of Father Martin. He is soon baptized. He then meets Mr. Kumar, a Muslim of some standing and converts to Islam. Therefore, he openly practices all three religions avidly. When the three religious teachers meet up with his parents at the zoo, they demand that he choose a single religion, to which he announces he cannot. Throughout this section, Pi discusses numerous religious matters as well as his thoughts on culture and zoology.

At age 16, Pi’s father decides that Mrs. Gandhi’s (the leader of India) political actions are unsavory and closes up the zoo to move to Toronto. He sells off a majority of the zoo animals to various zoos in America. The animals are loaded onto the same boat that the family will take to reach Winnipeg, Canada. On the journey to North America, the boat sinks.

As the only survivor of the shipwreck, he’s stuck in a lifeboat with a dying zebra and a hyena. Pi sees another survivor floating in the water and only after throwing them a life preserver and pulling them aboard does he realize that “Richard Parker” is actually the 400 pound tiger from his father’s zoo. He immediately jumps overboard until he realizes that there are sharks nearby.

So, upon reentering the boat, he wedges the tarpaulin up with an oar and decides he might survive if he can stay on top and keep Richard Parker beneath it. Over the next week an Orangutan arrives as well and the four animals interplay carefully, eating each other until there is only Richard Parker left.

Over the course of the next 7 months aboard the lifeboat, Pi hides on a makeshift raft behind the boat and begins the process of taming Richard Parker with a whistle and treats from the sea, as well as marking his portion of the boat. He begins to get close to the tiger, developing the kind of bond a zookeeper does with his menagerie. After a while, Pi learns to kill and eat from the sea, sharing with the tiger. The two do not eat nearly enough though and as time passes, they become quite ill.

At a certain point, the two become so hungry and ill that they lose their sight and come across another blind man amazingly floating along in the ocean as well. The two talk for a bit about food and eventually the blind man tries to board Pi’s boat, intent on eating him. However, when he boards the boat the unsuspecting man is attacked by Richard Parker and eaten. The tears from the situation eventually clear up Pi’s vision and they continue on alone in the boat.

Still floating along alone and desperate, the two come across an island made of algae. They disembark and Pi begins eating the algae, regaining his strength during the day and sleeping on the boat. Richard Parker regains his strength from eating the meerkats who live on the island, sleeping in the trees during the night. Eventually, Pi realizes that they leave at night because of an acid produced by the island during the night hours. He eventually notices a tooth among the algae, evidence of another man having died on the island. They leave quickly as the island is apparently carnivorous.

Finally, after more time spent floating along in the ocean, Pi sights land in Mexico and disembarks. Richard Parker immediately runs off into the woods and Pi is recovered by two men from the shipping company who owned the boat that sank with his family on it. He relates to them the story of his 227 days on the boat, but they do not quite believe his fantastic tale of surviving with a Bengal Tiger and meeting a blind man in the ocean.

So, Pi relays to them a second story instead of his mother, a sailor with a broken leg and a cannibalistic cook, with no animals and no magical islands this time around. The story closely parallels the first story without all of the fancy involved, and one of the men points this out. However, the two ignore the final story in favor of the better story and write it up in their report after Pi mentions that it does not matter as both lead to the same outcome.

shafnutz05 wrote:It's about a number that, for all of his life, he was led to believe that he was a simple, 3 digit guy. However, his world is shattered when one day, he is accidentally informed that he is actually made up of an incomprehensible amount of digits, and he will never actually be able to determine his true identity. He ends up taking his life in a bizarre murder/suicide, sending the rest of the world into chaos

Another one of these and I'll put you on the same level as Canaan and HomerPenguin

shafnutz05 wrote:It's about a number that, for all of his life, he was led to believe that he was a simple, 3 digit guy. However, his world is shattered when one day, he is accidentally informed that he is actually made up of an incomprehensible amount of digits, and he will never actually be able to determine his true identity. He ends up taking his life in a bizarre murder/suicide, sending the rest of the world into chaos

I don't know if that's actually the story, but I hope it is. It would rool if Pi faced off against Square Root of Two and Divide by Zero for ultimate control of the universe.

eddysnake wrote:Anyone watch Moonrise Kingdom? Darjeeling limited left me very underwhelmed and I'm hoping this is more to my liking.

Waiting for it to come in from Netflix. I had similar feelings about DL as well, but by all accounts this is far superior, so definitely looking forward to it.

watched Moonrise Kingdom last night, I thought it was really good, thought it was definitely back to his earlier form. I'm not sure if the novelty of his work is wearing off on me being basically the same thing over and over, but although I really liked this, I didn't get as much out of it as I thought I would.

shafnutz05 wrote:lol, I just saw the invasion force for Red Dawn remake is North Korea? Their population is less than a tenth the size of ours.

it was china when they were filming it, but then someone realized that chinese people spend a boatload of money seeing american films, and that a movie about them invading and getting mollywhopped would probably not only not be popular but outright banned, they decided to chance everything to the north koreans in post production

shafnutz05 wrote:lol, I just saw the invasion force for Red Dawn remake is North Korea? Their population is less than a tenth the size of ours.

it was china when they were filming it, but then someone realized that chinese people spend a boatload of money seeing american films, and that a movie about them invading and getting mollywhopped would probably not only not be popular but outright banned, they decided to chance everything to the north koreans in post production

Should ahve gone with some non-existent Middle Eastern country ala 24.

shafnutz05 wrote:lol, I just saw the invasion force for Red Dawn remake is North Korea? Their population is less than a tenth the size of ours.

it was china when they were filming it, but then someone realized that chinese people spend a boatload of money seeing american films, and that a movie about them invading and getting mollywhopped would probably not only not be popular but outright banned, they decided to chance everything to the north koreans in post production

If I do nothing else today, it's to use "mollywhopped" in conversations at least five times.

I thought Argo was decent. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I just never -really- got into it for some reason.

Spoiler:

I think the fact that it was a true story and the suspense involved around whether or not they would escape took a lot out of it.

Not that true stories can't be suspensful. One of my favorite movies of the past couple years was 127 Hours. But that focused not so much on "will he survive," but on the personal turmoil he went through with while being trapped. It was character driven. I was hoping to see more of that with Argo, but the only characters with any real arc were Afleck's and Ribisi's. I suppose it was too tough to accomplish something like that though with an ensemble cast.

meecrofilm wrote:I thought Argo was decent. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I just never -really- got into it for some reason.

Spoiler:

I think the fact that it was a true story and the suspense involved around whether or not they would escape took a lot out of it.

Not that true stories can't be suspensful. One of my favorite movies of the past couple years was 127 Hours. But that focused not so much on "will he survive," but on the personal turmoil he went through with while being trapped. It was character driven. I was hoping to see more of that with Argo, but the only characters with any real arc were Afleck's and Ribisi's. I suppose it was too tough to accomplish something like that though with an ensemble cast.

Spoiler:

See, I thought the total opposite. It actually kept me riveted even knowing that they escape. I think the movie did an outstanding job illustrating just how terrifying it is living in that world of theocratic authoritarianism. It's incredible "that world" exists in so many places today.